We’ve seen over the past few years an explosion of high-profile national conversations about higher education. At the federal and state levels, in regulatory bodies and legislatures, as well as in many foundations and think tanks, policy makers and their many advisers are pursuing ways to increase “student success” by fixing what is wrong with higher education.
I have written before about the problems with how these national conversations are framed. There are, of course, many problems that require urgent action – and, indeed, national dialogue is needed. Read the rest of this entry »
Commentators—on everything from education to politics to health—are all obsessed with reducing state and federal budget deficits. And, indeed, our nation faces some difficult choices in the coming months and years. If we make the right choices, we can reduce wasteful spending, but invest in the things that will enable our nation’s economy and its democracy to thrive in the future.
Many education policymakers are trying to make the case for at least maintaining investments in education, including in higher education. They make this case, however, almost exclusively by referring to how increasing educational attainment can fuel innovation and help our nation compete in the global economy. We also must invest, however, in a democratic vision for education—one that extends beyond just the need for more educated workers.
I recently read yet two more calls for more liberal education outcomes for today’s college students—this time, the calls focused on what is needed to effectively educate future doctors and business leaders. A committee of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recently published fourteen preliminary recommendations for the content and format of the new MCAT exam—required for those applying to medical schools. One of four test sections will now cover “critical analysis and reasoning skills.” The committee also recommends that the future MCAT examine a student’s “ability to analyze and reason through passages in ethics and philosophy, cross-cultural studies, population health, and a wide range of social sciences and humanities disciplines to ensure that students possess the necessary critical thinking skills to be successful in medical school.” These are, of course, recommendations that are highly consistent with the outcomes recommended as essential for all college students by AAC&U’s LEAP National Leadership Council in their report, College Learning for the New Global Century (pdf).
I was particularly pleased to also see that the AAMC committee urged further research to allow for refinements to the MCAT that would “help medical schools consider data on integrity, service orientation, and other personal characteristics early in student selection.” This is also highly consistent with the efforts AAC&U has pursued through its LEAP VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) initiative. Through VALUE, AAC&U has worked with faculty from all across the country to develop rubrics for such important learning outcomes as: ethical reasoning and intercultural knowledge and competence.
The other day I was doing one of the things I love best about my job—singing the song of the liberal arts to a group of committed faculty about to embark on the challenging but rewarding process of general education assessment. Those of you in my vast readership who have been through the current process should feel free to comment and correct this notion, but the assessment folks and I have heard again and again that the creation of the course portfolio and the subsequent review and feedback have been, in the final analysis, a source of insight and not too onerous either for submitters or reviewers. So things were going swimmingly. Appetites were whetted. The sale was almost made.
But just then something a little different happened that set us to thinking a bit. A colleague offered the opinion, in a friendly enough way, that (and here I quote as best I can from memory) “general education just sucks the life out of our majors.” Vivid imagery! What did he mean? Is there any truth to it? We had a packed agenda and didn’t have time for a full exploration, but were able to discuss a couple of points, and here’s the kernel of the sentiment as I see it.
You may have missed the media coverage of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates’s differing opinions on the appropriate focus of higher education policy,which began in the pages of Inside Higher Ed and now has reached the New York Times. It is, of course, a bit of a gimmicky way to approach a serious issue, but the debate about the forms of college learning that really matter—and that are worthy of investment either by individuals or taxpayers—is a real one, and many commentators continue to be missing some important points. They paint the choices individuals and policymakers have before them in too-stark terms. As is so often the case, the media also presents an either/or choice when the world really demands a both/and option.
Inside Higher Ed raised the issue initially by reporting about a speech Bill Gates delivered to the nation’s governors in which he expressed a remarkably narrow vision for higher education policy—arguing for a greater focus on funding “categories [of courses] that help fill jobs and drive [one’s] state economy in the future.” At the time, AAC&U’s President Carol Geary Schneider noted that, “the basic lessons of a liberal education are in fact crucial to the long-term employability of nonacademics.” Schneider noted, further, that focusing policy only on narrowly conceived majors or courses with explicit vocational applicability was a remarkably “unenlightened view of the value of higher education in general.” As she put it in an Inside Higher Ed article:
I generally find Paul Krugman’s columns helpful and on target, but I was dismayed to read his recent piece, “Degrees and Dollars” published last week in the New York Times. In reading it, I couldn’t help but think of Jon Stewart’s common refrain when he chastises those with whom he usually agrees, but who do or say stupid things: “You’re not helping!” Krugman falsely suggests an either/or choice between restoring “the bargaining power that labor has lost over the last 30 years” or investing in “putting more kids through college.” Don’t we need to do both these things, Paul?
Krugman suggests that because of globalization and outsourcing, the US job market isn’t, in fact, ever going to be characterized by rising demands for more educated workers. He notes the “hollowing out” of the job market—with both high-wage and low-wage employment growing rapidly, but medium-wage jobs lagging behind. He seems to miss, however, the fact documented so well by Tony Carnevale and his colleagues at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce that both medium-wage and high-wage jobs are demanding higher levels of knowledge and skill. Carnevale has also documented that, even with increased outsourcing of jobs at many levels, the American economy still will face a shortage of college-educated workers in the coming years. In their report, Help Wanted, Carnevale and colleagues suggest, in fact, that, “by 2018, the economy will create 46.8 million openings…nearly two-thirds of these 46.8 million jobs—some 63 percent—will require workers with at least some college education.” He notes further that, “by 2018, the postsecondary system will have produced 3 million fewer college graduates than demanded by the labor market.” This is the reason why President Obama–whom Krugman criticizes in his article–is trying so hard to hold the line against those who want to cut education funding. If anything, we need to increase funding for education at all levels–including funding for higher education. This clearly is as important a public policy priority as maintaining the rights of workers to organize.
By Susan Albertine, with Terry Rhodes, AAC&U vice president for Curriculum, Quality, and Assessment, and Nevin C. Brown, senior fellow, Siena Italian Studies and former senior fellow for post-secondary initiatives, Achieve Inc.
Spring is nearly here—and as we near this transition from one season to the next, it seems like a good time to address another key transition point in many people’s lives along the educational pathway from school to college—the transition between grades 12 and 13.
The current development of a set of Common Core Standards for K-12 education (adopted by 43 states and territories) presents those of us in higher education with an opportunity not to be missed. The Common Core is a step forward. It is aspirational, detailed, complex, and explicit. Its expectations for student performance extend beyond one-dimensional approaches to skills or content. It may not do all that many of us in post-secondary education would like to see (e.g. covering a fuller scope of outcomes in the sciences, humanities, or the arts). Yet it reaches for higher levels of proficiency than before for all students in English, language arts, communication, and quantitative reasoning. Unfortunately, the Common Core has yet to prompt widespread post-secondary minding and engagement. Can we change that pattern and bring about more connected work with schools on the ground?
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it” (Yogi Berra)
A few years ago, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and USA Today arranged for schools to post their NSSE benchmark scores on the USA Today college website. While the Community College Survey of Student Engagement had championed public reporting since its inception, this NSSE-USA Today relationship marked the first time that several hundred four-year schools took the leap of faith and made their student engagement results available to a national audience. More recently, national associations developed templates for their member schools to use to report cost, NSSE or other student experience measures, and—in some instances—selected student learning outcomes. To my knowledge, no institution has closed or been otherwise adversely affected by making public these kinds of student or institutional performance measures.
It’s almost certain that in the future, colleges and universities will be expected to provide much more information about what and how much students learn during college. Institutions are not of one mind, of course, about whether and how to do this. There are justifiable worries about people drawing erroneous conclusions from data. Another risk is that making visible all our laundry—some clean and some not so clean—will have the adverse effect of stifling candid internal discussions about where improvements need to be made and will discourage efforts to address such shortcomings. These concerns are real and not trivial.
I’m sure many of you are as transfixed as I am by the demonstrations in the Middle East and in Madison, Wisconsin. While spurred by very different circumstances and motivations, both are compelling instances of civic engagement and participatory democracy in formation and/or in action. They also both entail the supremely important public challenge of setting appropriate societal priorities in the midst of very challenging economic circumstances. Wisconsin’s governor has put his cards on the table in terms of where education fits into his own view of his state’s priorities. Access to meaningful educational and economic opportunity is also at the heart of democracy movements in the Middle East.
The demonstrations in the Middle East and in Wisconsin also, however, raise many questions about the role of education in advancing participatory democracy. These issues, too, are being debated throughout the higher education and policy communities. How many Wisconsin residents know their state’s history in terms of unions, collective bargaining rights, and educational opportunity? How many know how the salaries and benefits of public school teachers actually compare to those individuals working in the private sector with similar credentials and degrees? Readers of this blog will certainly know that AAC&U has called for all college students to have access to an engaged and practical liberal education—one that prepares them for informed and responsible citizenship as well as for work. College students need and deserve the knowledge, skills, and capacities that prepare them to debate these kinds of issues in productive ways.
By: Edmond Chang
Transformation is hard, and looking back to last week, I appreciated the opening plenary’s vision—which both Mark C. Taylor (Columbia University and Williams College) and respondent Michael S. Roth (Wesleyan) agreed is needed to change the business and culture of universities. You cannot have a future if you cannot imagine one. But to be honest, even as a “digital humanities guy,” I am uncertain and uncomfortable with the plenary’s broad technological and globalizational fixes. It comes as no surprise then, given that I am an English major, that I want to frame my response as a close reading, particularly of the metaphors invoked by all sides last night.
It is important that AAC&U Senior Vice President Caryn McTighe Musil who introduced the opening forum, spoke about the conference’s theme of “global positioning,” of “navigation,” of “maps,” of “movement” and “progress,” while being mindful of the histories, legacies, and violences of imperialism, capitalism, and global domination. Nonetheless, the rhetoric is a convincing one—one that echoes President Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address where he, too, challenged the nation to “win the future,” to take back time, space, and choice as American birthrights. But these metaphors of trade, of transnational flows, and of nostalgic exploration are now linked up to new formations and logics, new metaphors that deploy technology and the twenty-first century as both an unavoidable, uncharted territory and a “new world” ripe for colonization and conquest. The immense potential of computers, the Internet, and mobile technologies are undeniable, and they must be heeded. But these very potentials for democracy, liberation, and flexibility can also (and already have) serve hegemony, unfreedom, and the intensification of the now mouthful military-prison-industrial-entertainment-educational complex. Let us not forget that telecommunications and computer networks were the product of military and security programs. Let us not forget that digital imaging and global positioning systems are leveraged to police and surveil bodies and populations. Cooperation often becomes cooptation. Qualitative often is simply disguised quantitative. Vision often becomes (a single) somebody else’s vision. These are the very lessons I have learned from looking at and experiencing firsthand the struggles for democracy by minorities and the disenfranchised and the marginalized. These are the very informatics of domination that Donna Haraway presaged in her influential “A Cyborg Manifesto.”
